EU soldiers begin first operation in Macedonia

The European Union entered a new era yesterday when it launched its first military operation, taking over peacekeeping duties in Macedonia from Nato.

The force – which comprises 320 soldiers – will provide a crucial test of the EU's long-standing ambitions to play a bigger role in the Balkans and the wider world.

At a ceremony in the Macedonian capital, Skopje, Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy representative and Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, Nato's secretary general, hailed the move as a breakthrough, as they handed control to French Brigadier-General Pierre Maral.

Lord Robertson said: "A new chapter in European security has opened. By taking on its first military mission, the EU is demonstrating that its project of a European security and defence policy has come of age."

That message was echoed in London by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, who said Europe's security and defence policy "comes of age" with the launch of the operation.

One objective is to test whether the European force would be able to assume the much bigger and more complex peacekeeping role in Bosnia – where 13,000 Nato troops are stationed – next year.

The EU is hoping to take charge in Bosnia towards the middle of 2004, if the Macedonia operation goes well. Its embryonic military machine knows it must win hearts and minds in Macedonia, because the EU's image in the Balkans is shaped by the memory of the West's failure to intervene speedily to stop the carnage in the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

Plans to set up the EU's first military mission were deadlocked for months over an argument about how much it should be linked with Nato. That row was resolved last December and the EU has used the alliance's planning capabilities and will rely on Nato soldiers should the situation there deteriorate. Meanwhile, the overall mission commander is General Rainer Feist, a German who is deputy commander of Nato forces in Europe.

Macedonia ought to prove a manageable task: its six-month ethnic war ended in 2001 and a multi-ethnic government is now in place. EU troops will operate in small units spread out across the country, with 22 lightly armed and eight heavily armed teams patrolling in armoured vehicles and helicopters.

The EU's foreign policy ambitions have been overshadowed by deep divisions over Iraq, and the Macedonia mission is tiny compared to the massive military operation underway in the Gulf.

Yesterday's deployment also comes amid speculation that France and Germany will try to forge a "hard core" of EU countries to co-operate on European defence issues – excluding the UK. Belgium is to host a meeting with France, Germany and Luxembourg on the issue at the end of next month.

Britain will hope that the start of concrete military operations in Macedonia will outweigh any Franco-German desire to marginalise the UK, which is the EU's biggest military power. "European defence without Britain is like economic and monetary union without Germany," one EU diplomat said.